1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a tape loading arrangement applicable to a rotating head type magnetic tape signal recording/reproducing apparatus, such as a video tape recorder (VTR).
2. Description of the Related Art
Various type of tape loading arrangements have been proposed for video tape recorders and other apparatus utilizing a rotatable head drum for reading from or writing to magnetic tape. According to such conventional arrangements, a brake lever or similar locking arrangement is provided at the supply reel side of the tape transport for stabilizing the supply reel during rewinding operations when magnetic tape is wound from the take-up reel side to the supply reel side of a tape cassette. One such conventional signal recording/reproducing apparatus utilizing magnetic tape is disclosed in European Patent Application Publication No. EP0390433A2. In such an arrangement as proposed, since the torque range of the supply reel is substantially wide, damage to the tape may occur when tape is being extracted from the supply reel during a tape loading operation. To counteract this tendency the supply reel may be locked and the tape extracted from a take-up reel having a smaller torque limit.
However, in a `tape top` condition, that is, when the tape is completely rewound onto the supply reel, there is no tape available on the take-up reel to allow such take-up reel side tape loading as described above. In such a case, the take-up reel side loading is attempted a first time, then a tape top condition is detected by an optical sensor or the like and the tape within the cassette is wound for a predetermined time such that a sufficient length of tape is wound onto the take-up reel and the loading operation is repeated, thus the tape may always be loaded from the take-up reel side.
However, such a procedure as described above is time consuming and inconvenient for the user. Also, a complex mechanism must be provided for tape top detection, and thus the cost of the apparatus becomes high. Therefore, it has been required to provide a tape loading arrangement for a video tape recorder, or the like, in which tape loading may be quickly and reliably accomplished by a simple mechanism while tape damage is suitably prevented.